I have a problem that I can’t quite define, a problem in regard to my response to certain bits of formulaic Hollywood product and which possibly mirrors my response to (some) Robbie William’s stuff. It’s hard to describe but I’ll have a go by drawing on a real-life example.

A few weeks ago I was forced to watch “ Love Actually” and “Pulp Fiction,” again ( I saw the latter intentionally, when it first came out, the former “by accident” as I had to wait three hours for a flight and it was the only thing on at the cinema) watching both of them for the second (maybe third time) I found myself again in the position that I’m often in with this kind of stuff, that of being moved despite myself, or rather I should say intensely moved, affected even though if you asked what I “thought” of both of those films I’d say I disliked them.

What seems to happen is that it’s precisely my fight against the film that intensifies the moments of “emotion”, if I were less suspicious, less distant, less analytically lofty and superior, less desperate to be above the movie and more engaged and involved I would probably find them moderately moving or exciting, as it is, my desire to be Completely Unaffected by them (because they’re banal, manipulative, shallow, deceitful etc) sets up an enormous amount of inner turmoil that heightens everything and which result in my having, at moments, tears in my eyes, getting goosebumps or my heart hammering, this only angers me further of course and sets up a catastrophic escalating chain of conflict that often results in me, who doesn’t like the film, being more affected by it than anyone else, and practically hysterical by the end.

This doesn’t mean of course that the film isn’t bad, or that I “like” it, but it does I think demonstrate that component of negative emotion which is often attendant on intense experiences. I think Robbie’s “work” is in this category as are the other main names in my ongoing, rolling Book Of Evil, Hornby, Curtis, Ritchie. It doesn’t happen with something like say, James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” as this was clearly written by someone of sub-normally low intellect/gifts as a songwriter/lyricist ( “I’m sad, so sad, you’re bad, I’m going mad, I feel so blue, without you, what a to-do,” etc) whereas the others are very shrewd if not always awfully subtle manipulators of our emotions/desires. One of the most awful aspects of all this is of course the extent to which it tells me exactly who I am. You’re just another middlebrow, middleclass Kulcha-Ho susceptible to the same set of Pavlovian tear-jerking/rock-and- roll-cool bell-ringings as the fools you strive to set yourself above, you too are constituted THUS! These films set up a kind of struggle within me which is, in effect a short, intense burst of the lifelong process of someone trying to overwrite their coding, if I weren’t SO determined to be unaffected by them, if I could just say, ok, yeah it moved me here and there, I laughed at that bit, so what? It was corny but corny works and these guys are the Einsteins of Cheese, I am as susceptible to it as anyone else, then maybe this would be ok, but as it is actually I find these films threatening and aggressive. They’re a combat zone, and effectively the pleasure I get from them (a kind of thrilling, pulse rattling anxiety) is probably akin to the excitement of being in situations of actual danger. You’d really rather you weren’t there.

So what is this particular type of pleasure, if we can call it that, the pleasure of being set against yourself? It’s a sensation I largely avoid by avoiding the films themselves but I wonder whether it isn’t the underlying pleasure, or at least the addictive charge in a lot of “Product” especially pointedly Po-Mo stuff, that in a subtle, insidious way the pleasure is augmented by your rejection of what’s being offered you, and that by rejecting it you only tighten its grasp on you.